1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to a method and a device for laterally aligning a lateral edge of flat material webs fed to a machining station, in which the lateral position of the lateral edge is detected transversely to a feed direction under formation of a position signal and in which the flat material webs are moved transversely to the feed direction as a function of the position signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Methods of this type are predominantly deployed in automatic sewing machines, where it is important due to high processing speeds that the material edge is automatically guided along a predetermined path. In order to achieve this it is known (EP-B-0 383 045) to use a chain of spherical or crowned roller elements for the transverse transport, which chain can be adjusted in a plane extending approximately transversely to the sewing direction in its longitudinal direction as a function of the position signal and which lies against the material web with a plurality of roller elements having roller axes extending parallel to the aligning direction. The crowned roller elements have a rough or profiled surface structure in order to increase their frictional properties, which can lead to undesirable distortion or damage especially of fine silk or cotton materials.